


Unwinding

by Ias



Series: red thread [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - Mythology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: The labyrinth may well have been endless, and there was only so much thread.
Relationships: Javert/Jean Valjean
Series: red thread [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893049
Comments: 16
Kudos: 108
Collections: Valvert Leap Day Exchange 2k20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HellenHighwater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HellenHighwater/gifts).



The labyrinth may well have been endless, and there was only so much thread.

Valjean had heard the tales, of course—that was one thing this place had in abundance, when lacking so much else. No light, no warmth, no sound but the dull echo of Valjean’s sandalled feet padding over the stone. But the stories travelled through these dark corridors like a current of water pushing on Valjean’s back, urging him deeper into the maze. Stories of terror and death, of greedy kings and monstrous curses, all flowing through a labyrinth of no mortal design, and one which no mortal could surely survive for long. 

Valjean tightened his grip on his torch, banked to little more than a glowing ember. He had a brace of them strapped to his back, enough to last three days. If he could not achieve his aims by then, there would be little point in going on. He brought only a small amount of food and water, for he did not wish to be overburdened; and a stolen _doru_ , its end honed to sharpness and its long shaft polished by use other than his own. An awkward weapon in a hand unaccustomed to its heft; he used it more as an over-long walking stick, each tap of its butt echoing across the stone. The pain striping up his back was a constant reminder of the agony with which it had been bought.

And of course, there was the thread. It tugged at his back, ever-unrolling as he made his way farther from the light. He’d tied it around his chest and waist in a snug harness over his chiton, tight enough that there was no danger in it slipping off him. It was his way back, and his reason to return; the vision of gentle eyes turned fiercely up to his, small hands holding the roughspun thread for him to take. 

The thread, Cosette had said, was enchanted; and he had smiled at her, and taken it, but not believed. Not until he had tried to cut a piece of it off to wind around the grip of his spear, and found that no blade could sever its thin, pale loops. The gods were strange in their ways. Valjean was not certain whether the fact that he had warranted their attention was a comfort, or a threat. 

With only three days to do what dozens of men before him had failed to, he would take what help he could find. 

The reddish light of his torch barely served to illuminate the rocky walls on either side of him as he made his cautious way deeper into the maze. Still his aching eyes spied a smooth ledge jutting from the side of the tunnel wall, and with a sigh he made his way towards it. Each tentative step in the dark cost him twice the energy of his normal stride, and it seemed the darkness itself sapped his strength the longer he was away from the sun. By the amount his torch had burned, he had certainly been walking for hours; as he sat down he twisted carefully and let his fingers touch the slack line which trailed from its mooring on his belt, snaking off past the point where his weak light could illuminate. He was not lost, not yet. Merely tired, and in pain.

He nearly made the mistake of leaning backwards against the rock. The sharp snap of pain which broke across his back quickly curbed that impulse. The lash had bitten deep, this time. He leaned closer to the darkness at his side, seaking a crevice to wedge his torch, and that was when he saw the body. 

It was slumped against the opposite wall, barely in reach of the torchlight; if he had continued without stopping he would have seen it immediately. It lay facedown, its arms at its side, in full armor and with an intricately carved sword lying close to its hand. Valjean stood slowly; as he approached on silent feet, he could make out no wounds on the dead man’s body. But the dark pool of dried blood around his head told what parts of the story the raised ledge near his feet began—it seemed the man had been sprinting out of the caves in such a terror that he had mislaid his feet, tripped, and broken his skull on the unforgiving rock.

Valjean swallowed hard. In the underground chill, the body had not yet begun to decompose; he knew it must be one of the twelve men who had marched into the caves two weeks before himself, laughing and jesting about how they would lay the king’s table with a banquet of the monster’s flesh. Only four had returned, gibbering of darkness and screams; of their number only one claimed to have glimpsed the beast itself, and there was no way of knowing how much of his story had been embellished with ghoulish detail in the retelling. 

From the looks of the body before him, a victim of its own terror, Valjean was beginning to suspect that it had scarcely been embellished at all. _He who casts the beast from the labyrinth shall have his weight in gold:_ how many had lost their lives to those few, simple words?

Swallowing dryly, he collected his things and moved onward. There was nothing he could do for the dead man now, though he spoke a quiet prayer that his soul might be worthy to cross the Styx. He stepped very carefully across the ledge which had been the man’s undoing, and made his way deeper into the dark.

* * *

He had heard it told in many ways: That the monster was the son of the queen, cursed by a vengeful god; that it was nothing and no one, a cruel experiment of nature banished from human sight. He had heard that it had always been in the caves, or even that the stories were no more than fiction and there was no monster at all. Either way, the king had placed a bounty which any man, woman, child or slave could claim should they return within three days of entering the caves. To Valjean’s knowledge, no one had yet survived more than a single day and night within them. 

It was growing more difficult to say how long he himself had wandered. He had taken to walking with one hand pressed to the side of the wall, extra insurance against a fall. The ground beneath his feet was growing rougher with every step, and twice he had stumbled, dropping his torch and spear and cutting his palms on the unforgiving stone. Each time his back had flared with agony at the sudden movement, and he had needed to remain on all fours panting through his teeth like an animal before he could crawl over to his sputtering torch, and use his _doru_ to lever himself to his feet again. 

If he had not been stopped to rest when the low bellow of fury reverberated through the caves, he surely would have stumbled again. It seemed to travel outward through the stone itself, as if he were standing in the throat of a sleeping beast which had woken to find itself choking on him; he pressed a hand to the wall, heart pounding, but the walls did not close in around him and no figure came charging out of the darkness. Though the sound had seemed to come from everywhere, Valjean was certain it had come from the way behind him. He paused, listening for the sounds of pursuit. Only for a moment, so he might be sure which path to take. 

That was when the jolt came. First a tug, rippling through the string on his belt, so light he might have imagined it—except that he could see the faint bob and sway of the thread hanging before the light of his torch, moving under a grasp that was not his own. 

Before Valjean could react, a terrible yank from the dark corridor beyond nearly sent him sprawling. With a sharp cry Valjean was dragged backwards like a fish on a line, fumbling at the crude harness he had fashioned for himself. It would not break; the enchantment would hold even as he was torn apart by the monster at his back. And then Valjean lost his footing, and found himself slammed onto his stomach. Still it wound him backwards, the creature’s bellows ringing cruelly triumphant.

In a panic Valjean twisted around, his back alight with agony. The pain was distant to the panic now as he seized the thread in two hands—he could _feel_ its power humming in his palms. The coarse stone raked his back like talons, and the pain rushed through his body, down to his arms, and with a cry Valjean tore the enchanted string asunder. 

The cord snapped, its sever half whipping from his hand and disappearing into the darkness like a snake. For a moment Valjean could only lie there in disbelief, pain and fear washing over him in waves. The toll came quickly, as it had when he had lifted the fallen pillar or levered the cart up from the suffocating mud. A mallet of exhaustion struck Valjean’s body like a physical blow. He had never known where he drew this strange and terrible strength from; only that its cost was high.

As he sagged against the floor, catching his breath, the creature’s roar rose again—this time of fury. It must have realized its prey had escaped it. He did not have to quiet his breathing now to hear the pound of furious footsteps rushing towards him from the darkness beyond. 

Valjean ran, no longer pressing onward but rather fleeing what came behind; his footsteps were quiet and quicker, his hand tight on his spear. If he could find a place to hide, and ambush the creature as it pursued him—the very thought seemed to summon another furious clamor in the air, pushed through an inhuman throat. It most certainly came from behind him, and seemed much closer now. 

Valjean quickened his pace, thinking less now of the uneven ground and more of what terrible mouth could create such an awful sound. A curve in the tunnel. That was what he needed—an alcove, a sudden bend, anything which might buy him time. He broke into a cautious run, glancing over his shoulder with a flighty desperation, and so did not see the drop where it waited patiently before him, did not sense the coming fall until his foot skidded into nothing

He tumbled forward, not into open air but down a steep, narrow drop; he flung his hand out, the torch flying out into the darkness as he fell, rolling and scraping over hard stone, barely managing to protect his head. His back screamed in pain, the scabs cracking open like a dry lake bed; his cry of pain and fear crashed around his ears like a rockfall as he pitched down the earth’s stone throat. 

When he finally slid to a halt at the bottom of the slope, there was a long moment when he could only stir feebly, dazed and in darkness. His torch was gone, lost in the tunnel above; he felt as if he’d been chewed in the mouth of a sharp-toothed beast and then swallowed into a lightless stomach. 

Except it wasn’t lightless—not entirely. For as Valjean lay panting in the dark, waiting for the discrete agonies his fall had inflicted to resolve themselves into separate injuries, he realized that the grey shapes hanging before his eyes were not merely the pale imprints of pain. When he closed his eyes they disappeared, only to reappear as soon as he opened them; and the longer he watched, the sounds of his own panting breaths loud in his ears, the clearer they became. Hope surged in Valjean’s chest; there was _light_. Perhaps there was another way out. 

A doorway stood ahead of him, crudely carved into the rock, with a a stone slab twice Valjean’s height which no doubt had served as a crude door leaning against the nearby wall. It was from that doorway that the light shone; a pale, watery glow, yet in the darkness it was like a beacon. It revealed the shape of the convergence of three tunnels all leading towards it, far loftier than the narrow channel Valjean had tumbled down; and slowly, it revealed the dark shapes scattered like abandoned toys before the entryway.

They were bodies. It took only a moment’s scrutiny to see that they had not been victims of misplaced feet. One man lay slumped against the door slab, his breastplate cracked like pottery from a blow that must have shattered the bone beneath. And another—Valjean shuddered—had a neck which twisted at an angle that had surely ended the man’s life. The violence of those deaths was enough to make Valjean’s mouth dry, his stomach go watery with fear. He was injured, and his cry had surely alerted the monster to precisely where he was; and even if it hadn’t, this appeared to be the doorway to the creature’s lair itself. 

The bellow sounded again. It was closer, now, so close it seemed to shake the stone itself. More terrible than the terrible, mindless rage was the fact that it did not seem mindless at all—there was something terribly close to human in the monster’s ringing cries.

There was no time to think. Valjean scrambled forward, panic dulling the pain in his back. His bad leg nearly gave out from under him when he first put his weight on it, but he gritted his teeth and stumbled on. For a moment he wavered in the doorway, tempted by the promise of light; but the light would reveal him as much as it guided his way. Murmuring a quick prayer, Valjean stooped to seize the cold metal of the fallen soldier’s sword, and then turned to the stone slab the body had fallen beside. It did not appear to have been moved in centuries; the space between it and the wall it leaned on would barely allow him an intake of breath. 

The heavy steps pounded closer. No time. Valjean sucked in a breath, let it out again, and edged his way behind the slab. He had to turn his toes in opposite directions, his head to the side; even then his ear scraped painfully against the stone, and his chest felt as if the stone was pressing closer to crush him. And his back—the agony lept like a fanned flame as his wounds dragged over rough stone, and he could feel the heat of fresh blood seeping down his spine.

His breaths panted over-loud in the tiny space, bringing with them the smell of damp and stone and the beginnings of rot. There was no room to turn his head; all he could see was a strip of grey light on the side of the doorway. And then the sounds of pursuit thundered into the central chamber, bringing with them a terrible snarl, and Valjean ceased to breathe altogether. 

As soon as those terrible footsteps entered the convergence of the tunnels, they stopped. There was a long stretch of silence which Valjean bore in near-agony, his lungs screaming for more than the silent shallow breaths his hiding place allowed him. A scraping step, another; the creatures movements sounded like stone on stone. 

And then Valjean heard a sound which chilled the blood in his veins: the creature _laughed_.

“You wish to hide from me?” it said in a low, ugly voice. The chuckle came again, rumbling like a snarl. “Come out, mighty hunter. You sought the monster in the heart of the labyrinth—here he is.” 

Valjean remained silent, his head spinning with questions as much as the lack of air. Not once had the stories mentioned that the monster was intelligent, beyond that which could be expected from a particularly clever beast. But here it was, speaking as a man might. 

As if sensing the comparison, the creature let out a snarl. “I can smell your blood,” the creature said. “You cannot stay hidden for long.” 

Valjean listened, utterly silent, as its heavy steps prowled along the corridor outside. Hooves, Valjean realized. The creature walked on heavy hooves. Occasionally it would stop, and take a couple of deep, whuffing breaths. At once the grey bar of light before him darkened with the passage of a shape; an impression of shaggy hair and long, arcing horns, and then it had passed into the chamber which Valjean had not yet seen. Surely it was only the reek of the corpse propped against the stone door he hid behind that prevented the creature from snuffling him out. 

“Come now,” the creature’s voice echoed back to him, ringing less with the bronze tones of fury and now, rather, with an edge of peevishness. “How long have you waited to slay the great beast of the labyrinth? Here is your chance.”

Slowly, the clop of its heavy hooves on stone drew nearer. Again the shadow passed before Valjean’s narrow window, slower this time. “Dozens of your kind came to slaughter me, and here I stand. Face me, you wretch! Take what you came here to claim!”

The footsteps had stopped on the other side of the stone slab, now the only thing that kept Valjean from discovery. He could hear the restless paw of hoof on stone, the deep drags of the creature’s inhalations—and then, nothing. 

A moment of true silence. And then the light was blotted once again—this time, by an enormous hand groping towards him.

“Found you,” the creature snarled from the other side of the slab, its voice sharp with triumph.

Valjean acted without thinking. There was no time or room to flee, no space to fight; on impulse alone he angled his palms flat against the stone in front of him, and _pushed_. Panic surged through his veins, his muscles screaming with the terrible weight against him; still he pushed with all his might, and felt it begin to tip at the same moment the hand closed around his wrist in an iron grasp. Valjean sucked in a sharp breath; the nails dug into his skin like claws and the strength with which it held him was formidable, but the only thought his body allowed him as he levered the stone away was how distinctly human it felt. 

And then, the balance tipped; the weight which had been borne by the tunnel wall teetered and began to fall the other way. Valjean heard the creature’s snort of surprise and disbelief, but it was the hand that doomed it—for a moment longer it held him, seemingly unwilling to let go, so that by the time it tore away there was no escape. Valjean sucked in a gasp the second the pressure lifted, and a moment later the sound of stone slamming into stone with an earth-shaking shudder rang through the tunnels loud enough to hurt Valjean’s ears. The howl of agony which followed was enough to chill the marrow; no rage in the creature’s bellows now. Only pain. 

The dust which the slab’s impact had raised swirled in the air like smoke, catching the stray bits of weak light until the air itself seemed to be solid. Valjean coughed, pulling the edge of his chlamys over his mouth and turning towards the wall; in time the dust stopped pricking his eyes. The first thing he did, almost without thinking, was to pick up the sword. And then, blinking against the dim light and the dust, he turned to face the monster once more. 

The slab lay flat on the ground, dust swirling around it like an early morning mist. And from one side, a dark shape lay at the edge of the stone, one leg trapped under its brutal weight. The creature panted, twisting around to grope at the leg which was trapped. It had made just the one wail of pain, and seemed now to be attempting to remain stoically silent. For a moment Valjean could only stop and stare. What he noticed first were the horns, long, wicked things which arched from the creature’s temples, curving in a graceful spiral which ended in wicked outward-facing points. But the face bracketed by those terrible implements was shockingly human; there was a strangeness to the brow and nose, and the ears were fuzzy, leaflike protrusions more befitting a deer than a man—but the pain which contorted its expression, the fear in its eyes, was all human.

The creature’s hands scrabbled desperately at the slab which trapped its leg, attempting to gain a handhold. It was clearly futile; even a monstrous strength would not lift such a burden at that angle. At last the creature slumped forward, its hands returning to cup tenderly around its injured limb; and then, its eyes raised to Valjean’s, and its teeth bared in a terrible smile. 

“Well now—what a clever trick,” it said, the words thick and breathless with pain. Immediately after it finished speaking its face broke into a grimace of agony, as if the mere effort of making those words were breaking the leg all over. “Typical of your kind to resort to such devices. Come, then—” Its—his?—hand swiped ineffectually at the air between them, and Valjean nearly flinched back. “Finish it.”

Its eyes darted to the sword held limply in Valjean’s hand. Valjean took a step closer, swallowing hard. The creature’s chest was human, and it had belted around its waist a sort of kilt crudely patched from many different fabrics. Beneath the tattered fringe, the legs which emerged were those of a beast, thickly haired and backwards-facing like a bull’s. The one which remained free was tipped with a heavy cloven hoof. A kick from such an implement would certainly shatter bone. 

“Afraid of an injured lamb?” the creature taunted as Valjean wavered. “Come. Do what your kind has ached to do for forty years.” 

At last Valjean could remain silent no longer. “How is it that you speak?” 

“...What?” 

“You know my language,” Valjean said, speaking levelly. “How? Where did you learn it?”

The creature bristled. “I was not born in this cave, you simpleton.” 

This did not seem like such a strange assumption to leap to, but Valjean did not argue. “How did you come to be here?” he said instead. “You clearly have a human’s reason.”

“And a monster’s body,” the creature spat. “Which do you think your kind care for more? Now go on—do what you came to do. I am tired of hearing you talk.” 

Valjean said nothing. The sword was in his hand; he had used such a weapon many times before, and the memory cried out in his fingers like a convulsion of pain. He knew how easy it would be to step forward and slide such a blade home. Likely his body remembered enough to make such a death largely painless.

Valjean swallowed the bile which crept up his throat. This was what he had set out to do. One blow, and it would be over. Cosette’s life in exchange for a monster’s—surely that was a small price to pay? Even now he could smell the blood and filth of the battlefield, long before the iron shackles closed around his wrists. He had sworn—

The sword hit the dusty stone with a clatter. As it fell from Valjean’s fingertips he felt a different weight settle over his shoulders; but this one was easier to bear. The creature was staring at him, nostrils flared, the anger in his eyes mingled with confusion. Valjean took another step closer, and the monster bared his teeth—did he really expect Valjean to attempt to kill him with his bare hands? 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Valjean said softly, and the creature scoffed. “I need to take a look at your leg before I lift the door.”

“And why would you do that?” the creature snarled. “Do you think you can trick me so easily?” 

Valjean held his gaze levelly. “Kill me if you wish,” he said. “I am unarmed; you could surely destroy me in an instant if you wished it. But there is no one else here to free you, so I hope you will not do so.”

“Free me from the trap you yourself laid?” the creature snarled. “Where is the sense in that?” 

Valjean didn’t bother to argue. Instead he stepped closer, and then closer still; The nearer he drew, the more the creature tensed, bristling like a dog about to bite. Valjean’s eyes lingered on the wicked horns on his head, but waiting would do no good. He took the final step into the creature’s arm’s reach and knelt down. Rather than lunge at him, the creature tried to flinch away; but his leg, of course, still had him trapped, and the movement only caused a fresh wave of agony to shoot across his face. He groaned, leaning forward over his injured leg again, and Valjean felt another sharp prick of remorse lance his heart. 

“I am not going to touch it,” Valjean said as he leaned down closer to inspect the trapped limb. Even in the dim light he was close enough to see the sweat gleaming on the creature’s human chest, which rose and fall with the shallow breaths of pain. It was clear, too, that he was far too thin. He smelled of sweat and pelts; he was filthy, though had clearly made attempts to get clean. There were scars carved into its skin, as well, some ancient and some far fresher; clearly the creature had lived a life defined by pain and neglect. 

Valjean swallowed his questions and leaned down to peer beneath the slab, where the hair leg remained trapped beneath its weight. By pure luck, the leg had been pressed into one of the numerous depressions in the uneven floor when the slab fell. It was trapped and certainly badly injured, but there was, perhaps, a chance to save it. Had the creature fallen just a hand's-breadth to the left or right, and it surely would have been shattered beyond any healer’s ability. 

“If the weight was lifted,” Valjean said slowly as he straightened to meet the creature’s eyes, “would you have the strength to pull it back?” 

Dark, narrowed eyes scrutinized Valjean’s face. “It hardly matters,” the creature said with a disdainful sneer. “Your gods could surely lift this stone, but a moral man such as you never could.”

“Is that a yes?” 

“There’s no hope. I ought to kill you now, and be done with it.”

Valjean sighed. He shifted until he was crouching instead of kneeling, his feet under him and his fingers in the gap between the slab and the floor. “Be ready,” he said. “I am not certain I will be able to do this more than once.” 

And then, he lifted the stone. 

Valjean had never been able to describe what it felt like. It was as if he were a dry riverbed, hardened and withered; and that the strength which flowed through him was a coursing torrent of snowmelt, sinking deep into him, filling him with a power with him as its conduit, his body alive in a way that made him away that part of him had been _missing_. He gritted his teeth, muscles straining; and though he began lifting the stone as a man, by the time he had levered it high enough for the leg to be free, he was humming with the power of a god. 

Valjean heard the creature’s gasp of pain as the pressure suddenly lifted—there was only a moment’s hesitation before he jerked the leg free with a second groan of agony, rolling away from the slab at the exact moment the torrent of godlike power coursing through Valjean’s muscles went as dry as if a sluice gate slammed shut. The stone slipped from nerveless fingers to slam into the ground with a resounding crack; Valjean slumped forward on top of it, with no strength left in his limbs even to stand. For a moment he could only remain with his cheek pressed to the cool and dusty stone, eyes shut, muscles trembling. But when his awareness came trickling back and with it came memory, he opened his eyes to find the creature just before him. 

He was freed now; his hands probed gingerly at the leg, which was surely broken. But his eyes were on Valjean; they bored into him as if searching for something, and furious at not having found it. It struck Valjean at once that now there was nothing stopping the creature from killing him, if he wished; but Valjean did not have the energy to care, let alone attempt to mount a defense. And so he simply lay there, panting, and waiting for his strange companion to make his move. 

“How—” the creature paused, and shook his shaggy head. He seemed to be reorganizing something inside of himself, shifting his priorities “ _Why_ did you do that?” 

Valjean managed a weak smile. “Would you prefer I had not?” 

The creature’s nostrils flared at Valjean’s weak teasing. “You are strange,” he declared. “And foolish. I suppose even a species as evil as yours must also produce its simpletons.”

Valjean managed to get his arm beneath his head so his brow did not press into the unforgiving stone—a great accomplishment. “All men are capable of great evil,” he agreed, and paused. Though he had been about to attempt a defense of his species’ morals, he could not help but think of the scars that marked the creature’s body—of a life banished to the dark, waiting to be murdered by the very ones who labelled him a monster. “I am sorry for what you have suffered at my people’s hands.” 

This had clearly not been the response the creature had expected; he had puffed up at Valjean’s words, ready to launch a shattering rebuke, but at his apology he seemed to falter. “Sorry?” he huffed. “What good does that do?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” Valjean said, allowing his eyes to close once more. He supposed if he was about to be gored, it wouldn’t make much of a difference whether he could see it coming or not. “Do you have a name?”

This time, the pause drew out for much longer. “What?” the creature said at last, the crack of anger in his voice more defensive than anything. 

“A name.” Valjean opened his eyes to find the creature glaring not at him, but at his hands where they probed at his injured leg. “...A title that you call yourself by?”

“I know what a name is,” the creature snapped, shooting him a reproachful look before turning away again. “Why do you care?”

“Well,” Valjean said, slowly levering himself up on his elbow with a wince. “Unless you still intend to kill me, which I have no way of preventing, and unless your leg is much less injured than I fear it may be, it seems likely that we are going to both be here for some time.” Muscles which mere minutes ago had surged with inhuman strength now ached and trembled as if in the grip of a fever. Valjean could barely push himself into a seated position without a rush of nausea, and even slumping forward over his knees was a gargantuan effort. “I would like at least to know what to call you.”

The creature snorted dismissively, but did not outright refuse. Patience came so much easier to the exhausted; Valjean allowed his eyes to close again, dwelling only in his body, as if his mind could slosh around the aching chambers of his muscles and categorize all the damage. He longed to lie down in soft, cool grass beneath a friendly moon; but that luxury would not have been afforded to him even before he entered the caves. With a sad twinge in his heart, he realized now it never would. 

“Javert.” 

Valjean opened his eyes. The creature had turned away so Valjean could not even see his face. “That was what my mother called me,” he said quietly, and then shook his head. “It has been decades now since I heard it aloud. I do not know if it is mine, but I suppose it will suffice.” 

Valjean nodded. “Thank you, Javert,” he said, earnestly. At the sound of his name spoken by another, a shiver seemed to pass through Javert’s strange and twisted body. “My name is Valjean. Is there a place nearby where you have a…” A den? A home? “A place to stay?” Valjean decided. 

Javert turned to the doorway, which seemed brighter now than ever with the pale light that slipped through it. “Through there,” he said with a grimace. “But it would seem neither of us is in a position to walk.” 

“I will be able to manage it soon,” Valjean said, though “soon” could mean a minute or an hour in his experience. “But with your leg…” Valjean scanned the area around them, searching for inspiration. A glint of something in the dust near the slab caught his eye.

“A moment,” he said, and shifted towards it; his muscles screamed, every ache and bruise written into his body feeling like a gaping wound; and he could not even begin to think about his back. But he managed to drag himself over to the other edge of the slab, and pick the neglected sword from the dust. Careful of its wicked edges, Valjean shuffled his way back to Javert. 

The creature was still intent on his injuries, paying little mind to what Valjean was doing. So it was that when he raised his eyes to see Valjean creeping closer, sword in hand, the effect was instantaneous. 

Valjean barely had time to cry out before Javert was upon him, knocking the sword free and pinning Valjean to the slab with a hand wrapped around his throat. His lips were curled into a snarl of fury and agony—it must have cost him dearly, to move so quickly on that leg. The hand which squeezed Valjean’s windpipe shut trembled against his throat. Were Valjean not so weakened, it would be nothing at all to bat it away; as it was he could only grope weakly at it with one hand, unable to draw breath.

“Did you think me so stupid as to let my guard down?” Javert hissed. “I knew you weren’t so different. All your kind are the same.” 

Javert tried to bear down, though his fingers were not up to the task; perhaps the shock of his injury was finally setting in. Valjean managed to suck in a single breath, and knew he would get only the one chance to save himself. One word to stay Javert’s hand. 

In a voice which croaked past the grip on his throat, Valjean said, “Splint.” 

For a moment Javert’s expression did not change. And then he blinked; his eyes darted to where the sword had lay. Valjean had regained his grip on the hilt; he could have plunged it into Javert’s side at any point to save himself. At last, Valjean’s meaning seemed to sink in; the grip on his throat weakened, and then jerked away entirely. 

Valjean rolled over with a heave of breath, his head swimming. For a while he merely breathed; he had not been deprived so painfully or for so long, for in his current state Javert was not nearly as strong as he looked. When Valjean managed to turn back to Javert, the creature had sat backwards, his legs splayed in front of him, and was staring at Valjean with an expression of helpless bewilderment untouched for the first time by even a hint of anger.

“I don’t understand,” he said flatly, and slowly, Valjean raised the sword—hilt-forward, no threat at all. 

“Let me help,” he said hoarsely, and Javert did not flinch away as Valjean edged closer now. 

Valjean was careful not to move too quickly as he gently lay the sword down beside Javert’s injured limb. “I’ll need to inspect it first,” he said, and Javert remained silent. Valjean leaned in close; it was strange, to look at this limb which so clearly should have belonged on a beast, only to glance up into a strikingly humanoid face. The hair on it was short and black and fine, like that of a horse; it lengthened to wispy tufts where the joint turned backwards, and ended in feathery strands above the split hoof. 

Valjean swallowed dryly, thinking of the time when his master’s horse had broken its leg, and the only solution which had been left to them. But Javert was not a beast, no matter the shape of his body; surely there was some help for him, if only they could only set the wound. It was clear where the bone had broken; the swelling had already begun.

“I need to touch it now,” Valjean said, and saw Javert go tense as a result. “I’ll be as careful as I can, but—it may hurt.”

He stared into Javert’s face; his dark eyes closed, and he nodded once, his expression resigned to pain. Valjean carefully lay the flat of the blade beside the leg and then paused, suddenly at a loss—until he thought of the broken harness of thread he still wore, thread which not even the keen edge of a sword could cut. His fingers found the knots, and after a couple minutes of picking them apart he had a long length of delicate rope in his hands, and the hardest part of the task ahead of him.

Valjean shifted so that he was sitting cross-legged, and lay both hands on each side of the broken bone. The hair was soft and short, and the skin beneath feverishly warm. “I need to lift this so I can bind it. Are you prepared?”

“Do what you need to do,” Javert said through gritted teeth, and before he had finished Valjean had lifted his leg so that it rested in his lap. Javert bellowed, trying to jerk away on impulse; but Valjean’s grip would not allow him to move the leg at all. At last Javert subsided, panting and slumped backwards, and in that reprieve Valjean began his splint. 

It was slow and difficult work, binding the sword to his leg. The thread, though strong, was thin; it took many times circling the leg and sword before it finally felt secure. Valjean’s hands trembled by the time he was done, his fingers numb with the exhaustion growing within him. His limbs had regained some of their strength, but his mind felt as if it were leeching from his skull. 

When at last his hands stilled on Javert’s leg, he looked up to see the creature watching him. He was propped up on the edge of the slab, his chest rising and falling quickly, though his eyes were half-lidded. He looked as drained as Valjean felt. A sharp hiss escaped him as Valjean gingerly lifted the leg, but that was all; the splint held, and Vajean lowered it back to the ground.

“There,” Valjean said softly, and the sound of his own voice in the silence seemed strange; he had forgotten all things but the rasp of thread on steel. “You’ll have a chance at walking, now. How far is it to your dwelling?”

“It’s just through there,” Javert said, his eyes sliding closed. “I am not certain I can stand.” 

“I will help you,” Valjean said, though less than confident in his own abilities. He would manage. They could hardly spent the night shivering here on the cold stone when the promise of even a meager comfort lay so near at hand. Drawing in a breath, Valjean braced himself on the raised platform the fallen door made; it might be easier if he dragged himself over to the wall, but he did not think that would inspire much confidence in his ability to help Javert. Shuffling onto all fours, he managed to get to his knees; and then, trembling, he pushed himself upwards on his hands and feet, at last balancing on both feet as unsteadily as a babe taking its first steps. In a moment he had steadied himself; now that he was standing, the idea of walking did not seem so impossible. But when he turned back to Javert, bright with triumph, the creature was raising a single eyebrow.

“Are you certain you’d rather not just carry me?” Javert said dryly. 

The laugh which tore from Valjean’s belly was so unexpected that he did not know what to do with it. It hung awkwardly in the air for a moment, until Valjean cleared his throat. “Well. We’d best get you up.” 

The simplicity of that statement belied yet another long and painful ordeal. Valjean started by trying to grip his hands and pull him up, but with his weight on one leg and both their strengths severely depleted, this quickly proved beyond them. They tried many more configurations, but Javert seemed reluctant to let Valjean touch him. 

In the end, there was no choice; Valjean crouched behind him on trembling legs and looped his arms beneath Javert’s armpits, lacing them around his chest. As he slowly levered Javert up, painfully careful of his horns, Javert’s good leg scrabbled under him; he let out a groan of pain that Valjean could feel vibrating into his chest, but at the end of it, he was standing. He held his weight on one leg, and swayed as if on the brink of collapsing yet again, and that was why Valjean did not yet let him go. His chest was shockingly thin, the bones which the weak light hinted at revealed in full beneath Valjean’s fingers. 

“I’m going to loop your arm around my shoulders,” Valjean said, and the noise Javert made in response was one of pained agreement. Without ever once allowing Javert to stand under his own power, he slowly drew Javert’s arm until it was slung over the back of his neck. Javert went pliantly, his head lolling; they would need to move quickly before both their strengths collapsed entirely. 

“Don’t put any weight on that leg,” Valjean warned. “Just lean on me.” 

With that, they made their slow, lurching way towards the rectangle of light in front of them. A couple times they had to stop; once for Valjean and once for Javert, each of them panting for breath and leaning what weight they could trust the other to bear. He was surprisingly, shockingly light for one so tall. It seemed the form that leaned against him was mere skin pulled over bone. 

Valjean had no idea what to expect as they moved through the stone doorway. He was too exhausted to exercise any imagination. What he found was a jumbled repository of lost things and garbage; a pile of mismatched bags and bottles and clothing in one corner, slouching up the wall like a stain; a low cot which once might have stood a foot from the ground and yet had long since sagged wholly to the floor. In another corner, the wall glistened with the trickle of an underground spring; and far above, through a minuscule crack, the distant ghost of sunlight filtered down into the bowels of the earth. 

Valjean steered Javert over to the bedding, for there did not seem to be any other place of rest. Lowering Javert onto it was scarcely easier than getting him to his feet, for they were both weaker now than they had been before and the danger of jarring his leg on the way down was even greater. But though Valjean’s muscles were trembling uncontrollably by the end of it, he had laid Javert down on the meager pallet, Javert’s eyes squeezed shut with pain but his leg laid out in front of him as comfortably as Valjean was able. 

“Well,” Valjean said. He sank to the floor beside the cot without particularly intending to; his body simply refused to hold him up anymore. “I suppose I’ll rest for a moment.”

There was no answer but the faint trickle of water over stone. Valjean had intended only to close his eyes; but as he did, his head nodded forward of its own accord, too heavy for him to hold up any longer. His thoughts were so dense and heavy they packed his head like mud. And still his body begged him for rest.

With a sigh, Valjean surrendered to it.


	2. Chapter 2

Valjean struggled back to consciousness as one might wake from the dead. The stone beneath him was tomb-cold; his limbs may as well have been stricken with the stiffness of the grave. When he tried to shift positions needles of agony stitched themselves up and down his joints and muscles. And when he forced his eyes unwillingly open, it was onto a darkness so complete that Valjean wondered if he  _ had _ died. But he did not think the dead felt pain; at least not the crippling agony of overworked muscles and the constant dull throbbing of his back. He could not remember lying down, but he must have done so—and how long had he been asleep? 

“You’re awake.”

The voice, so deep and near in the total darkness beside him, nearly had him bolting to his feet. As it was, his body would not have cooperated with such a hasty course of action even if it had needed to; instead he merely sat up, his back screaming at him for his trouble, and squinted into the blank slab of nothing before his eyes. At once the full weight of where he was and what had happened came crashing back to him. “Javert?” 

A cold snort. “Who else?” A pause. “The light is by the foot of the bed. I couldn’t reach it.” 

Valjean nodded, and then realized Javert could certainly not see him. “I will look.” 

It was a struggle to force his bleary mind to recall the surroundings he had fallen asleep in. He was not sure which direction he had lay down, nor could he remember if there were any obstacles around the cot he would have to avoid tripping over. With one hand raised, he groped around him, hands skimming over the dusty cold of the floor and something thin and soft—and then, a warm and hairy leg. 

Valjean jerked his hand away. “My apologies,” he mumbled, and though the darkness was still absolute he could swear he saw Javert roll his eyes. At least it had not been the injured leg. 

“Farther down,” Javert said with barely restrained impatience. 

With more of his bearings, Valjean managed to follow the edge of the broken cot to its end. After a brief sweep of his hand uncovered the cold edges of a metal box, he soon had the heft of flint and steel in his hands. His fingers ached as he struck the stone, but in a moment the sparks touched the waiting candle and at last the wick gasped to life. 

In the flare of light, Valjean found himself staring directly into Javert’s eyes. The creature remained laid out on the pallet in much the same position Valjean had left him in. In that warm and friendly light, Javert’s form seemed all the darker; his black-haired legs seemed to drink in the light, while his horns caught it and threw it back as a spear. It was his eyes, though, which Valjean could not look away from; dark and wary and digging into Valjean with a terrible intensity. 

At last, when it became clear Javert had no intention of speaking, Valjean had to look away. “How is your leg?” he said quietly, setting to wedging the candle in a tallow-crusted crevice where it had clearly been placed many times before. 

“It hurts,” Javert said. Valjean found a second candle to light fro the first; the flame danced on the blade of the sword bound to his injured leg, the white thread which criss-crossed it like spiderwebs. 

“You will need to rest,” Valjean said, and then thought of the water. “A moment,” he said, rising with the candle. The wall dampened by an underground spring was easy to locate by sound; tearing a strip from his shirt, Valjean pressed it to the trickling flow of icy water, so cold it soon numbed his fingers. When it was thoroughly saturated, he returned. 

“This may hurt at first,” he said, settling down beside Javert’s legs once more. “But it should help.”

Carefully, he laid the cool cloth over the swelling on Javert’s leg. Javert hissed, tensing up—and then slowly began to relax. Valjean sat there a while, carefully lifting and folding the cloth so that a fresh cool side was pressed to the inflamed area; there was something meditative in it, and in the silence between them. The dark showed no signs of lifting; it must be the middle of the night. He had walked for what had felt like a day and a night before coming face to face with Javert. Could this be the first night? Or was it the second? He had no way of knowing how long he had wandered in the dark. 

With a sigh, he shook his head. Such thoughts were useless now. The price of the bounty was too high. 

“Do you have any food I could bring you?” Valjean asked. 

Javert hesitated, and then pointed towards the pile Valjean had noticed in the corner. “There’s bread,” he said.

Valjean stood, his body complaining less the more he moved it, and followed Javert’s gesture. Though Valjean had at first taken it to be a haphazard pile, he saw now that there was a strictly regimented order to it; the strips of cloth, though often torn and even bloodied, were folded and stacked neatly. There was a row of bags and packs; a folded stack of cloaks in many colors; dented plates of armor that had been carefully deconstructed for the metal. 

It was clear where Javert had gotten his supplies. At first, anger and disgust twinged in Valjean’s heart at the thought that Javert might pillage the dead. But when he glanced over his shoulder to see Javert lying in his little island of light, skin and bone on a bed of rags, Valjean’s recriminations dried on his tongue. What other option did he have, but to take what food he could find from those who could have been his murderers?

When he opened one of the bags, he soon found the food Javert had spoken of. The rounds of bread were green with mold. Valjean carried them and a small knife back to where Javert waited, his eyes closed. 

“I had more food in my pack,” Valjean said ruefully as he settled. 

Javert opened his eyes. “That does us little good now. It could take you hours to find it again.” 

When Valjean raised the knife and began to cut away the moldering crust from the bread and let them fall into a neat pile on the floor, Javert sat up.

“What are you doing?” he snapped. 

Valjean blinked. “Cutting away the mold.”

“You’re wasting it, and there’s little enough to waste. Give it here.”

Valjean passed it over mutely, and watched as Javert carved the loaf in two, passing an equal portion to Valjean; without pause Javert began to eat, hungrily and without relish. Only twice did he pause to grimace at what must have been the vile taste. When at last he was done and glanced up to see Valjean watching him, his eyes narrowed. 

“What?” he snapped, and Valjean shook his head. What could he see of his thoughts that Javert would tolerate? Pity was clearly not a gesture he would welcome. 

“How long have you lived here?” Valjean said quietly, holding out his bread. Javert hesitated a moment, warring between hunger and pride, and then reached out to take it and devour Valjean’s half. He did not speak until it was all gone; and even then his eyes darted to the little pile of moldy crumbs that Valjean had thought to discard, so stale their edges were sharp enough to cut an unwary tongue. 

“Since I was a child,” Javert said. 

It was difficult to determine Javert’s age, what with his inhuman features; but he certainly did not appear to be young, if the lines carved near his mouth and nose were any indication. How long had he lived here, in the squalor and the dark, waiting to be slaughtered like a beast? 

“My mother tried to hide me, but I was discovered eventually,” Javert continued, warming to his subject. “And rightfully so--a creature so hideous does not deserve to live under the sun.”

“Don’t speak like that,” Valjean said quietly. “It isn’t true.” 

“Is it not?” Javert’s eyes narrowed. “I tried, once, to appeal to your kind’s better natures, back when I was young and foolish and afraid to die. I hid in an alcove while the latest of the butchers passed by, and pretended to be another lost wanderer myself. He was quite kind, and made all sorts of promises to help--until I stepped into his light.” Seemingly without his knowledge, Javert’s hand had wandered to a place on his stomach--the ugliest of his scars. It was long and deep, a gouge carved from hip to sternum by what must have been a terrible blow. 

“That was the first man I killed,” he said, his voice growing cold. His hand pulled away from the old wound and clenched into a fist. “An important lesson.”

Valjean wished to press the issue, to tell Javert that his strange deformity did not by necessity doom him to a life of pain and solitude. But of course, who was Valjean to argue with a lifetime of experience to the contrary? His eyes settled once more on the gleaming sword, and he thought of the man, slumped in the corridor outside, who had hoped to use it to that very end. 

“Have you killed many men?” Valjean asked softly.

Javert looked up sharply. “I killed all I had to.” His lip curled, ever so slightly. “I suppose that disgusts you.” 

Valjean sat quietly a long time. The memories were easier to bear in this cool and quiet place; the pounding of the sun and the hot stickiness of blood on his skin seemed to belong to another life entirely. But it did not--he could never allow himself to forget that. The priest had shown him the way. 

“I was a soldier,” he said at last. “A long time ago. I killed many people, and told myself it was just--that if I did not, they would have killed me first.” He fell silent. The memories weighed heavily on him, and no strength could lift them from his back. He was certain that he deserved his bondage in the same way Javert seemed convinced he was truly a monster. 

“So no,” he said at last. “It does not disgust me, that you would defend yourself. I am only sorry that you needed to.” 

Javert remained silent, fingers picking at the edge of the blanket. Valjean let the silence unspool; there was nothing else to do in that dark and lonely place. In truth he did not expect Javert to speak again at all without prompting, for it was clear that he had not had much opportunity to hone his conversational skills. 

“Most never found me,” Javert said at last. “They would wander, lost, until they died one way or another; I would take what I needed from them. I soon learned that those that did reach me had no interest in words.” Javert turned to him. His face was so strange, all the more alien for how human it looked. “Why are you helping me?” 

Valjean paused, considering the question. “Because it’s clear that you are a person,” he said. “And I would do the same for anyone who needed it.” 

Javert snorted. “And what would make such a gentle soul with a loathing for violence wish to send himself into the darkness to hunt a monster?” Valjean could practically feel Javert probing through his reasoning, seeking out a vein of greed or wrath to pinch. 

“A soldier always loses eventually,” Valjean said quietly. “When I did, I was taken with my fellows as spoils of war, and have been in the bondage of slavery for twenty years since. I worked the fields in the summer, and was leased to the quarries in the winter. I understand that I was a valuable resource; with my strength, they could assign me the work of three men.” Even now the rough walls of the labyrinth seemed to warp as if underwater, becoming the smoke-stained tunnels of the mines. “The king’s reward could be claimed by any, so I stole away in the night to make my claim on it, so I might buy my freedom.” 

Javert made no noise of derision at that, though Valjean half-expected it. “Twenty years is a long time. Why now?” 

Valjean looked away. He thought of the small hands, offering up their thread. The faith in the eyes which held his own. “There was another,” he said quietly. “A young girl whose freedom I hoped to purchase alongside my own. I have suffered for my sins, as is right, but she—she is innocent.”

“Your daughter?” 

“No. Well—as close as I will ever have.” The pain in his chest throbbed in time to the wounds which still marked his back. “Her mother was a slave in my household. She was perhaps as close to a friend I have ever had. She took ill this spring and I--” The words  _ I took Cosette in as my own  _ dried on his tongue. No, he had not. He had given her the love and attention she was deprived by their uncaring masters, in what little time he had left from his toils. He had sat with her by the fire and dried her tears when she missed her mother. 

But she could never have been his--not until they were free. And Valjean had known, watching the cruelty of their masters and their desperate scrabbling for more money, that soon what benefit Cosette might have offered them as a house servant would be outweighed by the price they could get for her. And then they would be separated forever. Valjean had borne two decades of bondage to notoriously cruel masters, and yet he knew that he would never be able to bear that. So he had stolen his master’s  _ doru _ and claimed it lost, accepted the lash for his supposed carelessness, and set off to hunt a monster with little more than a spear and a ball of thread.

When Valjean looked up, Javert appeared deep in thought. “You would give up your freedom rather than kill me,” he said at last.

“I will not trade the life of another person for my own. Never again.”

“Ha. Yes. I see.” Javert’s eyes closed again as if he had jostled his leg, but to Valjean’s eyes he had remained deathly still. “If I should have had your moral purity, I would certainly have died as a child.”

“Every man does what he needs to.”

“And every beast, as well.” Javert’s eyes were two dark orbs, reflecting the flickering light. He seemed hesitant to speak for a moment, his ears flicking slightly. “Will you tell me about it?” he said quickly. “The world above.”

Valjean smiled, and hoped he managed to keep the sadness out of it. “What do you wish to know?” 

“I remember very little.” A frown creased Javert’s brow. “Were there--lights? In the sky at night?”

“Stars,” Valjean said softly. “I am not surprised you remember them--they are lovely enough to make the dark seem like an old friend.”

“I used to lie at wake when I was younger, and stare at the water on the stones.” Javert’s eyes were fixed on the trickle of water on the opposite wall; with a start, Valjean realized that the pinpricks of candlelight reflected back to them did perhaps bear some resemblance to the night sky. But only to an eye which was desperate for any clinging remains of beauty. 

Javert leaned forward, his previous hesitation forgotten. He looked at Valjean with the same expression he had worn while staring at the crumbs on the ground, one of hunger honed by a long starvation. “You may as well tell me more,” he said with a belligerent offhandedness that his steady gaze belied. 

Valjean sat back, allowing the memories to seep back-- past the dull ache that the field work put into his back and shoulders, the sweat and the indignity and the pain of the lash. Javert knew enough of cruelty and pain. He thought instead of the sunlight; the gentle breezes; the sunset on the water, and the taste of bread not made sickly with mold. He spoke of it slowly, letting the words spool out of him; the complication of pain and beauty, and longing for a home he barely remembered now. At some point Javert’s eyes had closed, and Valjean closed his too; they might have been walking the hard-packed road from the fields to the well together, listening to the call of birds beneath an endless scrolling of clouds. 

* * *

“Soon you will leave.”

Valjean had not realized he had closed his eyes until he had to open them again. It seemed he had drifted off, lulled by the melody of his own voice and the steady hum of exhaustion in his bones. Such a thing had happened many times when he told Cosette stories to help her sleep. But Javert had not slept at all. When Valjean blinked the haze of sleep from his eyes, he realized that the candle had flickered out to allow the pale light of the third day filter into the room. By its dim illumination he could see Javert was watching him. Only then did his words sink into Valjean’s mind.

“I suppose I must,” Valjean said. The thought saddened him somehow; of leaving Javert here, alone in the dark, waiting for a death which might be swift, and certainly would not be painless. It was not fair. Not fair that he should return to see Cosette torn away from him. The candle flickered, guttering in the well of melted tallow; it was then that Valjean realized that the light was beginning to creep back into the cave, dull blue and undeveloped. The third day had dawned, and it was dragging them towards their respective fates, each no better than an animals sent to work or slaughter. 

“Perhaps you ought to do it,” Javert said dully.

Valjean turned to look at him. The thin, watery light had obliterate his expression; he was nothing more than a jumble of shapes, the faint grey slash of the sword, the curving line of horn. 

“You could make it quick,” Javert continued. And then he laughed—a terrible sound. “The others will not be so generous.”

“No,” Valjean said; and it was only as he said it that he fully comprehended the feeling behind it. No. He would not permit this wretched creature to perish alone in the dark at the hand of some brute more interested in coin than sparing the life of one who had no cause to die. He would not allow it any more than he would allow Cosette to be fed into the same thresher he himself had faced for twenty years. A sick pit opened in his stomach, at the thought of Javert awake from the glittering dream Valjean had woven for him, in the dark and with nothing but the promise of future pain. 

“Listen,” he said. Javert did not seem interested; his eyes remained closed, his face turned away, until Valjean laid a hand deliberately upon the soft, warm fur of his uninjured leg. Javert opened his eyes then, to glare reproachfully at Valjean’s liberties. but Valjean did not care. 

“Come back with” Valjean said, his words thick with earnestness. “We can leave together.” 

Javert stared at him. “Did you hit your head when you fell down that tunnel?” he said suspiciously. 

“I am serious.” Valjean was speaking fast now, as if the vision in his head might dissipate if he did not voice it quickly. “ _ He who casts the beast from the labyrinth shall have his weight in gold _ . There is no part of it which demands the beast must be dead.” 

“If you think that the people who have spent years trying to slaughter me will happily release us both on a technicality—” 

“And why not?”

“You will deprive them of their sport. They would kill me where I stood the moment I stepped into the light.”

“Not with me at your side,” Valjean said. “Javert, listen to me. I could bring you out, as—as a prisoner, if need be. I would not allow anyone to hurt you.”

Javert laughed. “You might try—and then we would both die on the end of some fool’s sword.” 

“ _ Javert _ .” Valjean’s squeezed Javert’s leg, as if he could force his meaning through his fingertips. “If you stay here, your death will be on my hands. I cannot allow that. Please—if only for my benefit, you must let me try.” 

“Get off me,” Javert said gruffly, and at last Valjean pulled his hand away. Shifting gingerly, Javert managed to twist his body so that his back faced Valjean. He looked very small, in the dim grey light. 

“It’s a pretty world you describe, but there’s no place in it for me.” Javert’s voice lacked all emotion now; he may as well have been a statue, or a bundle of rag and bones. “Take your visions and your false hope--I will not fall for such things again.” 

Valjean sat silently at his side for some time, as perhaps Javert would roll back over and announce he had changed his mind. But there was nothing but silence and the trickle of running water, and so at last Valjean rose. He took a candle and lit it; Javert made no comment on the sound of the flint and steel, despite the fact that he had few enough candles to spare. Soon Valjean had a little flame to carry with him out the door. 

He hesitated a moment, standing over Javert’s bed. And then he left without a word. 

The path up the tunnel he had fallen down was steep, and he followed it step by step with his candle swinging low over the stony ground. It took quite some time to find his pack, his scattered torches and the broken head of his spear. By the time he had gathered all his lost possessions, he stood at the top of the slope where the tunnel opened up into the wide halls still marked with thread. It would be easy to find his way back from here, feeling back along the winding cord until he felt the sun on his face once again. 

For a moment he stood, framed by the dark throat behind him and the open way ahead. And then he turned to make his way back the long, perilous drop into the dark, his candle a guiding light ahead of him.

When he stepped back through the high stone door Javert was struggling to sit up on his cot, his expression stormy. “What’s wrong?” he said, lips curling into a sneer. “Would you prefer to take another candle? Or perhaps you’ve changed your mind about granting me a merciful death—”

Valjean allowed his burdens to fall at the foot of Javert’s bed with a clang. He replaced the candle in the box, and laid two of his three remaining torches beside it; he then moved this and the bag with the food to the side of the cot where Javert could reach it. All of these actions he took silently; and Javert had fallen silent to watch. Once Valjean had laid everything else out, he sat down beside it himself; only then did he raise his eyes to meet Javert’s. 

“What are you doing?” Javert said, the reproof in his voice dulled slightly by confusion. 

“I’ve found us some more food,” Valjean explained. “And light to last us a while yet.” 

“Us?” Javert repeated. “What are you—”

“I will not leave you here to die,” Valjean said simply. 

“You are a fool,” Javert snapped. “I told you to leave.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“I do not want you here!” 

“I am sorry to hear it. All the same, I believe I’ll stay.” 

“You will not.” Javert was struggling to sit up now, his teeth bared with the effort, hands reaching out for Valjean as if to seize him and cast him across the room. “I’ve had enough of your honeyed words,” he snarled, grasping weakly for the neck of Valjean’s chiton. “Get out. Get  _ out _ —”

Valjean leaned in, put both his hands on Javert’s shoulders, and gently pressed him back onto the bed. There was a moment when Javert’s eyes widened at the feeling of Valjean’s irresistible strength bearing down on him. For a moment he tried to fight it; and then he quieted beneath Valjean’s hands, lying meek and silent against the bed. His shoulders were bony, the skin cold; he felt very human, and very weak. 

“You cannot force me to go,” Valjean said softly. “If you truly wish to remain here, then this is the last good I will likely be able to do.” 

“You will throw your life away for nothing,” Javert hissed.

Valjean shook his head sadly. “What life?” he said. “There will be nothing for me to go back to. Perhaps it is better if Cosette thinks that I died.”

Slowly he let his hands slide from Javert’s shoulders, and Javert did not attempt to lunge at him again. They sat quietly; neither of them, it would seem, were any good with words. Valjean could feel Javert’s eyes boring into his face in the dark, and he submitted to that searching gaze without complaint. It would not be so bad, he thought, to spend his final days like this. Away from the unforgiving sun and the agony of toil. Here, in the cool and the dark, perhaps he might find some rest. 

“Very well.” 

Javert spoke quietly, but in the trickling silence there could be no mistaking it. “I will return with you,” Javert said, and then snorted. “Since it seems you are intent on throwing your life away whether I have a say in it or not. I suppose... it might be worth something, to die having felt the sun one last time.” He looked up sharply. “Do not say anything,” Javert snapped, at whatever he saw in Valjean’s expression. “I do not wish to hear it. And we must leave soon—now—if we are to quit this cursed place before the third sun of your journey sets.” 

Valjean nodded, silent; but even in the darkness he was certain Javert could see the glint of his smile, for he turned and shook his head with something like embarrassment. 

“Come now,” Javert said, softer now. “Light that candle, and help me up.” 

* * *

The way was long. 

It took some time to get Javert to his feet, though not nearly so hard as it had been the first time. They settled into the same configuration, Javert’s tall, spindly frame leaning over Valjean’s broader one, an arm slung around his shoulders and Valjean’s hand steadying his hip. Javert was all sharp edges, bones that jutted into Valjean’s body at every place they leaned into each other. Every so often Javert’s splinted leg would scrape the floor, and Javert would double over with a sharp hiss of agony; but Valjean kept him up, and step by step, they made their way out.

“Do you know the way back to the thread?” Valjean said. There was no hope of getting Javert up the steep, low passageway Valjean had tumbled down, and so they had opted for a different path. Javert held the candle in his free hand, since Valjean’s were occupied in keeping him steady. He did not seem to need the light. At times they would reach a fork in the path, and Javert would stop to sniff the air or brush the back of his hand over a place in the wall seemingly no different than the others. And then they would continue on, with Javert never once hesitating or glancing back.

“We don’t need your thread,” Javert said. His voice was sharp with pain and exhaustion, though they had been walking—or limping—for barely an hour. “You had yourself hopelessly lost. I know the way back myself.”

Valjean did not argue. Without Javert, he would have no hope of finding his way back; there was nothing to do but trust him. 

Their progress was slow, and grew slower the longer they went. Before long Javert’s breaths came in harsh pants even after they had stopped to rest. A sheen of sweat shone on his brow, the result of exertion and pain. 

Valjean reached into his satchel to tear off a chunk of bread; it had been coarse and hard to begin with, and now that it was stale it had the consistency of dry leather. Javert took a bite mechanically, and then stopped to stare down at the remaining piece in his hand. He devoured the rest so hungrily that Valjean almost told him to slow down, but the words caught painfully in his throat. This poor creature had subsisted off of foulness for so long that even a hard rind of unleavened bread was ambrosia on his tongue. 

It was only another hour after that when Javert’s good leg went out from under him. Valjean had no warning before Javert was buckling with a cry; it was all Valjean could do to lower him slowly, taking what care he could not to jostle his broken leg as he lay him on the stone.

“I am sorry,” Javert said through gritted teeth. “I—I do not think I can go any farther.” 

Valjean bent over his good leg. In the dim light of the guttering candle and beneath the dark, short hairs, he could see the muscle was bunched and trembling in what must have been a painful cramp. “Hold this,” Valjean said softly, passing Javert the candle. “Try not to move too much while I take care of it.”

“What are you going to—” Javert’s question bit off with a cry as Valjean began to knead the tortured muscle back out of the knot it had twisted itself into. Javert remained rigid and shaking while Valjean’s fingers did their work, sinking deep and teasing the muscle back into pliancy. Even as Javert finally began to relax and the leg began to go slack, Valjean knew it was useless. Javert would not be able to walk with one leg broken and the other at the end of its strength. They would need to rest, to sleep—and sunset was likely only hours away. 

“How close are we to the end?” Valjean said softly. His fingers continued to massage Javert’s leg, digging the tension out wherever he could find it, the hair soft beneath his touch. 

“Another two hours, perhaps,” Javert said, and let out what must have been an involuntary sigh as Valjean continued to work on his leg. For a while they said nothing; likely Valjean ought to stop, but he did not want to face the choice before them now. 

“You will need to leave me here,” Javert said at last. “I cannot go on. You gave it your best attempt,” he said, perhaps hoping to placate him. “If I had your strength—”

“You do have it,” Valjean said; and without another word he leaned forward, slid one arm beneath Javert’s legs and looped another around his back, and lifted him into his arms. Javert gave an undignified yelp, clutching weakly at Valjean’s shoulders; but he was light, far too light for a person his height, and after a moment Valjean had him securely in his arms.

“Tell me the way,” Valjean said, and heard the click of Javert’s dry swallow close to his ear. If he had thought to argue, the words died before reaching his tongue.

“Take the left passage,” he said hoarsely, and Valjean did as he was bid.

He tired quickly. Javert might not have been heavy, but Valjean’s strength was still depleted and even a middling burden grew unbearable in time. Valjean did not trust himself to stop and put Javert down; he did not know that he would be able to pick him up again. He walked slowly, unable to see his feet on the uneven ground. After a while all thoughts of their destination fled his mind entirely, until he was nothing more than the sum of his burning muscles and the dull ache in his feet, the quiet thread of Javert’s voice guiding him through the endless dark. 

He noticed the tension at first; the way Javert’s muscles went stiff, his grip on Valjean’s shoulders tightening. Valjean opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but it was then that he smelled it: fresh air. It wafted over his face in a nearly imperceptible caress, and it was not long before he could see a faint light from up ahead fighting past the glow of their candle. 

“Valjean. Please—wait.” 

Valjean stopped. Javert was trembling now, so rigid he seemed ready to spring from the arms that held him. Valjean twisted his head to scrutinize Javert’s expression, and found his eyes riveted on the way ahead, wide and filled with a terrible uncertainty. 

“I do not—I haven’t—” 

Valjean’s arms tightened imperceptibly. Slowly, he helped lower Javert to his feet. After the hours without walking, his legs held. Valjean blew out the candle, and they waited in silence for their eyes to adjust. It did not take long; the light in the passage ahead was brighter than Valjean had realized, a rich evening light which limned the edges of the rocks in gold. 

“Come,” he said, returning one hand to Javert’s hip and holding the other out, palm up. “We’ll walk together.”

“I cannot.”

“You can.” 

“Valjean, they will kill us--”

“Do you trust me?” 

Javert wavered. Valjean could see the battle within him, the years of anger and pain and mistrust, cauterizing his hope like a brand. But Valjean remembered also the look on his face while he thought of the memory of the stars; he hunger as he tasted unspoiled bread that a lifetime of suffering had not starved out of him. Valjean knew how much he was asking. And yet still he held out his hand.

For a moment Javert seemed ready to pull away. But then his eyes shifted from the path ahead to the open hand Valjean held out to him, and his expression grew not softer, but less afraid. He took Valjean’s hand, and allowed his arm to be slung over a willing shoulder. Once again his light frame rested on Valjean’s side, straight and proud. Whatever lay outside of the labyrinth, they would face it together. Valjean squeezed the hand in his own, and after a moment, felt Javert squeeze back.

Then together they moved forward, step by step, and led each other back into the sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, alright! So sorry that part 2 was a day late, but I hope it will be satisfying! Thanks so much for the fun prompts; I was sorely tempted to do something in the vein of sirens or wingfic, but in the end I couldn't resist trying to come up with a different hybrid. I hope you enjoyed it! <3
> 
> Also, even though this fic is now marked as complete, there's a high likelihood I'm going to be writing a fun little fluffy epilogue. Because I need them all to be explicitly, disgustingly happy.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [what a yarn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357401) by [Readaholics_Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readaholics_Anonymous/pseuds/Readaholics_Anonymous)




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